


Chappy

by Lieju



Category: Gaston (Bande Dessinée), Spirou et Fantasio
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 13:28:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8015752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lieju/pseuds/Lieju





	1. Chapter 1

Some dumb crap by Lieju

  
  


Characters included; The Count, Zorglub, Spirou, Fantasio and the chateau de Champignac.

  
  


The promt was 'a character gets' superpowers, I hit 'random page' on Spirou wiki and got the Champignac manor.

  
  


* * *

 

  
  


When  one morning everyone staying at the Champignac manor woke to the  building being taken over by singing daffodils everyone, naturally,  blamed Zorglub.

  
  


"I didn't do it!"

  
  


Fantasio  gestured at the yellow flowers that had spread over the yard and large  parts of the outer walls overnight and were now making all kinds of  flute-like noises. "Yeah, I'm sure these things just appeared out of  nowhere all by themselves-"

  
  


A horrible screeching noise filled the air.

  
  


"WHAT IS THIS!?" Fantasio yelled, trying to locate the source of the commotion.

  
  


Eventually it died down with a sad whistle.

  
  


"I picked one up!" the Count yelled. "For analysis! It reacted like this!"

  
  


Spirou bent down to get a better look at the cut flower. It seemed to twitch slightly. "You don't suppose they're alive?"

  
  


"Flowers are alive."

Zorglub's remark earned a distrustful glare from Fantasio. (With an accompanied mumble of 'well are they now.')

  
  


It went ignored. "And some plants have defense mechanisms like this."

He poked a flower, getting a soft 'fiuuu' in return. "For the most part they seem to be harmless."

  
  


The soft whistling did grow into a cacophony of sound when a gust of wind blew by them, however.

  
  


"Ah, sorry to interrupt, but aren't there more of them than a moment ago?" Spirou noted.

  
  


They were popping up everywhere on the yard.

  
  


No, not just on the yard, but on the outer walls and roof of the mansion.

And when Spirou, Fantasio Zorglub and the Count retreated inside, they could spot some starting to pop up on the floorboards.

  
  


"You're sure this isn't some weird experiment of yours?" Spirou asked.

  
  


"Hm, I don't think so. There have always been daffodils growing there, they have never done this before."

  
  


"The walls are turning blue." Fantasio pointed at them. "It's not just weird flora."

  
  


"I've been meaning to finish painting the walls, actually," Zorglub told him. "We've been renovating."

  
  


"I knew it! You and your schemes!"

  
  


Fantasio was ignored.

  
  


The Count poked a now-blue wall."It's like it's freshly painted."

  
  


"We should get out of here, I don't think this is safe," Spirou noted, his hand on the wall.

"The walls feel... Odd, like they're softly pulsating somehow?"

  
  


"I need to get some thing from the lab," the Count told him.

  
  


"And we are surrounded by the daffodils," Zorglub reminded them, "which, while not exactly deadly, well, do you want to make your way through the yard, stepping on them?"

  
  


The Count returned from somewhere. "There's something very odd going on."   

  
  


"Yeah, we've sort of noticed."

  
  


The mycologist showed them a book.

  
  


"Looks like random scribbles. And are those stick-figures?" Spirou asked.   

  
  


"It used to be my notebook, but it's like it's changed somehow, into this."   

  
  


"Almost looks like it was used as a child's drawing book."

  
  


There was a sudden crash, and before they had time to investigate the source of it, everything started to shake.

  
  


"Everyone, out!"

  
  


The whole building shook, looking very much like it was doing an impression of a wet dog.

  
  


It's towers lurched, twisting around, windows and doors opening and closing.

  
  


The four humans ran in different directions.

  
  


But it seemed like the whole yard was coming alive, roots rising from the ground, tripping Zorglub over.

  
  


Before he could get up, a root wrapped around him, and lifted him up.

  
  


The architecture of the house was rearranging itself, the windows and a door almost forming a face.

  
  


The terrified scientist was tangled in front of it.

  
  


And then the face spoke.

  
  


"Daddy?"

  
  


...

  
  


  
  


Zorglub looked up from the baby book. "Would the first words be 'Daddy', or-"

He made a whistling sound, similar to how the daffodils had sounded.

  
  


"Hmh,  why not put in both?" the Count noted. "Although the-" he whistled, "is  probably comparable to a human baby babbling, just trying to make  sounds, experimenting. That's what it was, after all, the first attempts  at communication."

  
  


"I'll put in both," Zorglub told him.

  
  


He  turned to address the building behind him. "Hear that, Chappy? Daddy is  going to write down your first words so we can reminiscence about it  later!"

  
  


"You can't be serious!" Fantasio exclaimed. "Also 'Chappy'?"

  
  


"It comes from 'chateau'", the Count explained.

  
  


"Hi!"  Chappy greeted Fantasio and Spirou, the booming voice coming from all  around them. "You wanna see fungi? I know what's a fungus, do you know what's a fungus? Daffodils are not fungi, I'm just gonna make singing fungi from now on!"

  
  


"Oh dear God you're teaching it science? Also, a baby book?"

  
  


Spirou elbowed Fantasio. "Shh, Chappy might hear you."

  
  


"Of  course," Zorglub looked at the blond like he was crazy. "Something for  us to remember things like first words. It will be nice to look at, when  Chappy is all grown up, or has kids."

  
  


"Chappy is a house."

  
  


"Adoption is always a possibility", the Count pointed out, "after all, it was for me and Zorglub."

  
  


"Oh,  careful now, you wouldn't want to let it slip your baby was  a-d-o-p-t-e-d," Fantasio told him, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

  
  


"We have been completely open about it with Chappy," Zorglub told him.

  
  


Fantasio groaned. "So, why did you want to see us? I was under the impression there was an emergency."

  
  


"Well,  we should get going soon," the Count told him. "There's a science conference in Tokyo, so we found ourselves in need of a babysitter."

  
  


"Sure," Spirou told him before his companion had time to react. "Do we stay outside, or-"

  
  


"Don't be silly," the Count told him. "You can stay in your usual bedroom. Chappy is sapient but still a house."

  
  


The Count leaned to whisper in Spirou's ear "But it's nice to get away for a  while, a hotel room just for us two, you know what I mean."

  
  


"You're going to leave us with your- um, child?"

  
  


"Chappy is still too young to be left alone," Zorglub reminded Fantasio.

  
  


"Isn't it like a hundred of years old?"

  
  


"You know what I mean," Zorglub said. "And we can't get anyone else, we haven't made this all public yet."

  
  


"Did  you ever figure out why this all happened?" Spirou asked. "Nothing  against you, Chappy, but is there a risk of houses coming to life now?"

  
  


The Count emerged from somewhere with a suitcase.

"As  far as we can tell, it's because of a bunch of tiles we used to fix a  wall. They were old, we managed to get them from, hm, what was the name  of that castle? Swine something? Hogwarts. In any case, we got to hurry.  Zorglub, did you remember to refuel the Zorglumobile after you went to  buy some fresh milk?"

  
  


And so, Spirou and Fantasio (and Spip, but no one cares about Spip) were left alone.

  
  


"So, how do you babysit a house?" Fantasio asked.

  
  


Spirou gave him a look. "The same way you babysit a kid. Chappy, would you like to hear a story?"

  
  


"Yeah."

  
  


THE END

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

 

"We're home!" Olivie announced, kicking her shoes away.

 

Prunelle couldn't help being relieved. "Everything went fine?"

 

"Phuh, of course," Gaston told him. "What could have possibly gone wrong?"

 

Prunelle could think numerous things actually, coming up with worst possible scenarios being one of his specialties.

Not that it took much imagination to be wary of letting your daughter visit the household of _two_ rather unique scientists.

And he couldn't exactly refuse to let her go there either, considering how indepted they were to the Count. After all, Olivie wouldn't have even been born without his technology.

 

So when the Count had asked if Olivie could come over some time to play with their son who very rarely met other kids of his age, what else could he have told them but yes?

And it _was_ nice for Olivie to get to know other kids.

 

Although Prunelle wished he would have asked some questions beforehand, such as where this kid had come from, and how normal he was. He had originally planned to go with her, but an emergency at work (for once nothing Gaston-related) had forced him to spend most of his Saturday at the office.

 

Before he could ask anything more, Gaston turned back, and with a "I'll need to go buy some fish for the cats," he left.

 

Almost suspiciously quickly, actually.

 

Prunelle bent down to Olivie's level. "Did you have fun?"

 

She nodded. "Yeah."

 

"How was the boy? The one who wanted to meet you?"

 

"His name is Chappy."

 

"Was he nice?"

 

"Yeah."

 

"So, what did you do?"

 

"I drew a picture. Then Chappy showed me a birds nest. He knows all the birdsnests there. And he knows all their names but I know too. He didn't know how to read anything but capital letters, but he's still a little kid."

 

"So, he's younger than you?"

 

"He is. He's a little kid who doesn't even know where Paris is. I told him if he wants to go to Paris I can go with him to show where the Eiffel tower is but he said he can't leave home."

 

"That must be hard, just being home. Doesn't he go to school?"

 

Olivie looked at him like he was being silly. "No. He can't go to school, I can't go to school and he is _younger_ than me," she explained.

 

She looked thoughtful. "I dunno if he would have to maybe ask the teacher and everyone in the class to come to him to teach though. But the Count and the Zor- Zorblob-"

 

"Zorglub," Prunelle corrected her.

 

"Zorglub teach him stuff and they taught me stuff too. Can I go there again?" She whispered conspiratorially. "Chappy said he has a dinosaur!"

 

"You're not getting a pet dinosaur," Prunelle told her absent-mindedly.

He'd have to have a talk with Gaston later, or the Count, but so far this had all sounded far more normal than he had feared.

 

"And then he showed me some books, and then we went inside of him, and had dinner, so I've already eaten."

 

"Good. Wait, what?  _Inside_ what?"

 

"Chappy."

 

It probably said a lot about Prunelle's experiences with what he referred in his mind collectively as ' _those people Fantasio knows_ ' that his first thought, as well as words, were:

"Did the Count of someone else build some kind of a shrink-ray?"

 

* * *

 

 

"Hello?" Zorglub turned to the Count. "It's Olivie's father."

 

"Which one?"

 

"I'm not sure if he introduced himself. Sort of difficult to tell from all the angry cursing."

 

"That would be Prunelle, then. Say hello to him from me."

 

"Pacôme says hi." Zorglub was silent for a while. "Really? I'm fairly sure we mentioned he was adopted at some point. Yes. No. I'll have you know, if you say that about my son ONE MORE TIM-"

 

The phone was snatched from him. "Oh, yes, this is the Count. I trust you have been well. I and Zorglub were just talking about how nice it would be if we could all have a picnic, us, you, Gaston and the kids. No, I assure you, he is a good boy, you should meet him. He quite liked Olivie, and it's so nice for him to have friends of his own age."

 

He listened for a while. "Yes, that's all true. So, next Sunday? Wonderful, see you then."

 


End file.
